Listen up. No cute, stylized warrior ever cleared the land of monsters by dying for the spirit of their dead king. They did it by making other cute, stylized warriors die! Monster Slayers is the newest game from Nerdook, author of Vertical Drop Heroes! and others. This time around we're treated to a light and casual strategy/RPG game that puts you in charge of a highly customizable team of five slayers. Nerdook's last game was decidedly "vertical" in nature, this one is all about moving your heroes horizontally across the map. You have four commands you can issue: Fall Back for retreats, Defend for when you need to make a stand, Attack for when you're feeling bold, and Quick March when you just need to cover some ground.

The goal of most stages is to get from one end of the map to another, killing anything in your path. On others you'll just need to take down a boss. You can do story missions, but you'll always have a few levels to choose from if you're not strong enough to progress or if you just feel like taking down a tiger crab. There's not a whole lot of story to speak of, but as you progress you'll unlock more upgrades for your units, so no complaints there!

There are four basic units, each which you can spend coins to upgrade into one of two advanced units and then upgraded again. Upgrading won't always change your unit though, sometimes it just beefs them up a little. Sometimes enemies will drop hats which you can equip on your units to give them stat boosts. Enemies will also drop ingredients. Combine two ingredients and you'll get a summon, each one having a different ability that you can call on in battle.

Analysis: Strategy games appeal to that part of me that wants to be a great commander, but I'm not very good at making decisions packed with strategic savvy. Monster Slayer is a great pep talk for the tactically-challenged gamer like myself. With simple commands and even simpler goals, you'll run down your enemies with ease. This simplicity will likely turn some serious strategy fans away, but as far as casual strategy games go, this one's a definite winner.

There's quite a bit you can do with soldiers by way of upgrades and hats. The game gains a little bit of complexity in this area as you'll have to make choices like... should I sacrifice some attack power by turning this unit into a healer? There are some problems with this system, though. The biggest one is that if you decide to switch your unit from, say, an archer to a soldier, all the levels and upgrades that archer gained will be lost if you try to switch back. This puts a big damper on any grand plans of experimentation, but it does help from the perspective of balance. Plus, if your units aren't suited for one battle, try another one. There's very little to stand in your way.

In addition to the simplicity and the customization, another of the game's strong points is the quickness of each level. You probably won't spend more than five minutes on any given stage. While this doesn't allow for much depth it does keep the game rolling, allows you to get money and experience quickly, and it provides that "just one more level" factor. The levels don't have much variety, even though they'll have labels like Assist Mission or Revenge Mission, there's not much discernible difference. They do help keep the game from getting stale, though.

With other features like the summon system and multiplayer options that let you share your army and battle other players, there's a lot to like about Monster Slayers. That's without even mentioning the charming Nerdook art style. Overall, Monster Slayers is a very light and breezy kind of game. It's a lot of fun as long as you don't expect it to be challenging or deep. That's not to say you won't have to do any thinking, but you don't need to be a five-star general to make it through.

36 Comments

I've been playing this on Kongregate the last two days a little bit. I'm a little frustrated, because there is quite a bit of grinding to earn the cash to level up your guys. Also, if you want to change their class, they reset to rank and level 0 which is sort of frustrating. Especially because some classes are so obviously better than others.

It's a fun game, I just feel a little out matched a lot. I wish I didn't have to grind so much. And I wish the classes were balanced a little better.

thanks for reviewing my game! @Matt: I've fixed the grinding somewhat, now bosses drop gold based on their hit points, so it's much quicker later in the game. Also, yes, additional hats are obtained by defeating a multiplayer army that has them. :)

I enjoyed this game ... it is just the type of casual game that I can get into. I'm glad it doesn't require time invested into it or lots of do-overs. Although a player above me commented that it was hard to level up, I think there's just a bit of strategy in choosing the composition of your army, planning which upgrades as well as carefully picking your missions.

For example, a priest for healing is indispensible. The Pikesman is much more effective than the ranger/bowsman. And it is much better to give the Beserker a +damage hat, more HP to one of the swordsman, and +armor to the priest.

So it does take a bit of strategy, which is good, but (and this is the BEST part) not a lot of clickety-clickety clicks. Just select your position: attack, defend, fall back or march quickly.... and leave it there until you need to change.

This is awesome. My only disappointment was how quickly the story part ended... but I found on replaying that new hats and encounters were still to be discovered.

I'm quickly realizing that I can always count on Nerdook games for humor and quick entertainment. . I look forward to whatever else is around the corner.

Okay this is really weird, but I am getting some serious deja vu from this game. I feel like I've played the exact same thing before here on JIG a while ago, but with different art and story. Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?

Figured out what it was. An older game by Nerdook called "Bongo Boom Battlegrounds" that was featured in a Link Dump Friday. It was a lot like this one except it featured a rhythm component as the main part of gameplay.

Seconding a lot of elle's remarks, this game definitely seems to favor the melee attacks with a healing priest in the background. I've got 3 Legendary level swordsmen; Assassin, Berzerker, and Legionaire, and 2 Legendary Lancers; Knight and Priest, which works pretty well in any situation. Sweet Game overall, with lots of fun upgrades and summons. Gonna try to get those other hats!

fun little game. After I completed the story mode I played a bit in multiplayer and encountered some dude with a character with over a few thousand HP and got pwned real hard then I stopped playing. But it is entertaining while it lasts. Thanks for sharing this here :D

I went for a balanced party. One of each class pluss an extra swordsman. With the swordsmen, went one legionaire and one bezerker. Walked through most of the game, had to try a couple dop-overs but not to bad. The trick is to not waste money changing classes bt to always upgrade instead.

have 5 grey knights and they have health and armor hats i did a bunch of multiplayer have not lost once with a full out attack no defending sounds strong-headed but they have 1000+ health each and do over 100 damage each and crit well and tear down mass range spammers quick and also push defenders back to reach the ranged easier lowest i got was 800 total health so i'm doing good

I've done pretty well with a grey knight, a priest, a fire mage, a demon slayer, and a mercenary. The grey knight and the priest are indispensable, and the demon slayer and fire mage are probably the best ranged units in the game. If I were to play it again, though, I'd change the swordsman for a spearman or horseman right off the bat. In my experience, swordsman units just aren't as good as the other types.

I've found the longbowers are extremely effective. They shoot 3 arrows at once, which means they have the potential to do 3* the damage of any other unit. With a good shield to put them behind they're unstoppable, legionaire in my case. Unstoppable by any enemy which isn't at least 2.5 times their level.

ok so i been noticing ALOT of pure longbowmen/fire mages.... the gaurdian screws u over though. a summoning creature that makes people immune to every single one of ur attacks is bad news for you, so consider making combos, some mages/bowmen and some melee units, otherwise ur done for.

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